List of San Antonio Spurs head coaches

The San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio, Texas. They are a member of the Southwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The franchise was founded as the Dallas Chaparrals of the American Basketball Association (ABA) in 1967.[1] The team suffered from poor attendance and general disinterest by fans in Dallas, and the name "Dallas" was dropped in favor of "Texas" during the 1970–71 season in an attempt to make the team regional. This also proved to be a failure, and the team returned full-time to use "Dallas" for the 1971–72 season.[2] The team was put up for sale after missing the playoffs in the 1972–73 season.[1][2] The team was acquired by a group of 36 San Antonio businessmen, led by Angelo Drossos and Red McCombs, who relocated the team to San Antonio, Texas and renamed it to Spurs.[1][2] In 1976, the ABA folded, threatening the future of San Antonio's sole professional sports franchise.[1] The NBA, however, decided to admit four ABA teams into the league, including the Spurs, along with the Denver Nuggets, the Indiana Pacers and the New York Nets.[1]

There have been 18 head coaches for the San Antonio Spurs. The franchise won their first NBA championship in the 1999 NBA Finals coached by Gregg Popovich.[1] The Spurs won four additional NBA championships in 2003 NBA Finals, 2005 NBA Finals, 2007 NBA Finals and 2014 NBA Finals under Popovich.[1] Popovich is the franchise's all-time leader in both regular season and playoff games coached and wins.[3] He also won the NBA Coach of the Year award for 2002–03 season.[4] Larry Brown is the only member of the franchise that has been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach.[5] Bob Bass, who has coached with the Spurs for four terms, leads the franchise in most terms coached.[6] Cliff Hagan, Max Williams, Bill Blakeley, Dave Brown, Morris McHone, Jerry Tarkanian and Popovich spent their entire coaching careers with the Spurs.[3][7][8][9][10][11][12]

Key

GC Games coached
W Wins
L Losses
Win% Winning percentage
# Number of coaches[a]
* Spent entire NBA head coaching career with the Spurs
† Elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach
*† Elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach and
spent entire NBA head coaching career with the Spurs

Coaches

Note: Statistics are correct through the end of the 2023–24 season.

# Name Term[b] GC W L Win% GC W L Win% Achievements Reference
Regular season Playoffs
Dallas/Texas Chaparrals
1 Cliff Hagan* 1967–1970 199 109 90 .548 15 7 8 .467 [7]
2 Max Williams* 1970 60 28 32 .467 6 2 4 .333 [8]
3 Bill Blakeley* 1970–1971 65 25 40 .385 4 0 4 .000 [9]
4 Tom Nissalke 1971–1972 84 42 42 .500 4 0 4 .000 [13]
5 Babe McCarthy 1972–1973 72 24 48 .333 — — — — [14]
6 Dave Brown* 1973 12 4 8 .333 — — — — [10]
San Antonio Spurs
— Tom Nissalke 1973–1974 112 63 49 .563 7 3 4 .428 [13]
7 Bob Bass 1974–1976 140 83 57 .593 13 5 8 .385 [6]
8 Doug Moe 1976–1980 312 177 135 .567 22 9 13 .409 [15]
— Bob Bass 1980 16 8 8 .500 3 1 2 .333 [6]
9 Stan Albeck 1980–1983 246 153 93 .622 27 13 14 .481 [16]
10 Morris McHone* 1983 31 11 20 .355 — — — — [11]
— Bob Bass 1983–1984 51 26 25 .510 — — — — [6]
11 Cotton Fitzsimmons 1984–1986 164 76 88 .463 8 2 6 .250 [17]
12 Bob Weiss 1986–1988 164 59 105 .360 3 0 3 .000 [18]
13 Larry Brown† 1988–1992 284 153 131 .539 14 7 7 .500 [5]
— Bob Bass 1992 44 26 18 .591 3 0 3 .000 [6]
14 Jerry Tarkanian*† 1992 20 9 11 .450 — — — — [12]
15 Rex Hughes 1992 1 1 0 1.000 — — — — [19]
16 John Lucas II 1992–1994 143 94 49 .657 14 6 8 .428 [20]
17 Bob Hill 1994–1996 182 124 58 .681 25 14 11 .560 [21]
18 Gregg Popovich*† 1996–present 2,209 1,388 821 .628 284 170 114 .599 2002–03, 2011–12, 2013–14 NBA Coach of the Year[4]
5 championships (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2014) 		[3]

Notes

  • a A running total of the number of coaches of the Chaparrals/Spurs. Thus, any coach who has two or more separate terms as head coach is only counted once.
  • b Each year is linked to an article about that particular NBA season, except for the seasons spent in the ABA.

References

General
  • "San Antonio Spurs Coach Register". basketball-reference.com. Sport Reference LLC. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
  • "San Antonio Spurs history site". NBA.com. Turner Sports Interactive. Retrieved June 29, 2008.
Specific
  1. ^ a b c d e f g "San Antonio Spurs History". NBA.com. Turner Sports Interactive, Inc. Retrieved June 12, 2008.
  2. ^ a b c "Dallas Chaparrals History". RememberTheABA.com. Retrieved June 12, 2008.
  3. ^ a b c "Gregg Popovich Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved May 14, 2010.
  4. ^ a b "Coach of the Year". NBA.com. Turner Sports Interactive, Inc. Archived from the original on September 15, 2010. Retrieved June 12, 2008.
  5. ^ a b "Larry Brown Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
  6. ^ a b c d e "Bob Bass Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
  7. ^ a b "Cliff Hagan Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 8, 2008.
  8. ^ a b "Max Williams Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 8, 2008.
  9. ^ a b "Bill Blakely Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 8, 2008.
  10. ^ a b "Dave Brown Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 8, 2008.
  11. ^ a b "Morris McHone Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
  12. ^ a b "Jerry Tarkanian Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
  13. ^ a b "Tom Nissalke Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
  14. ^ "Babe McCarthy Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
  15. ^ "Doug Moe Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
  16. ^ "Stan Albeck Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
  17. ^ "Cotton Fitzsimmons Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
  18. ^ "Bob Weiss Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
  19. ^ "Rex Hughes Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
  20. ^ "John Lucas Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 11, 2008.
  21. ^ "Bob Hill Coaching Record". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved June 11, 2008.